birds of australia Archives

Urban birdwatching guide to Perth

From the ephemeral lakes to the woodlands and eastern hills, Perth abounds with birds – some 190 species in total.

New study reveals evolutionary history of Australia’s gigantic ancient bird

A flightless, plant-eating bird, mihirungs weighed 250kg and lived in the late Oligocene to the early Miocene, about 33 to 20 million years ago.

Wildlife

GALLERY: stunning flocks of budgies in Alice Springs

During the hot, dry summer months, Alice Springs is often beset by a beautiful plague – flocks of thousands of green budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) in search of increasingly scarce sources of water. Photographer Steven Pearce says that there was around 4000 birds congregating around the waterhole just after dawn.

Wildlife

Faithful golden bowerbird an indicator of climate change

Golden bowerbirds are known for their faithfulness: often the bowers constructed by these birds remain the same for up to 30 years. But when these intricately constructed twig formations start disappearing, scientists can tell something might be wrong.

Wildlife

Cats kill more than a million Australian birds a day, according to a new study

By combining data on the cat population, hunting rates and spatial distribution, these scientists have calculated that these invasive predators kill 377 million birds a year.

Wildlife

GALLERY: The colourful robins of central Victoria

The boulder-strewn open woodlands of central Victoria are sometimes referred to as the “robinfields”. It’s probably the only area where you can hope to see, in the one place, nine of the 20 species in the Australian robin family.

Wildlife

Birds that farm

Australia has the only birds in the world to have been seriously described as farmers. Bell miners tend ‘herds’ of bugs, whose sweet coverings they harvest as their staple food.

Wildlife

5 top birdwatching spots in the Wet Tropics

Four hundred and fifty of Australia’s 828 known species of bird can be found in the wet tropics and 12 of them — including the southern cassowary, golden-shouldered parrot and Victoria’s riflebird — are endemics found nowhere else in the world. We’ve selected five birdwatching spots within easy reach of Cairns.